Petronella Cybersecurity News

Going inside a gas station just to purchase has has become all but obsolete for many of us… And when is the last time you paid for gas with cash? While paying at the pump with your card is convenient, it has just become much less secure.  According to police in North Dallas, at least […]

The general feeling by the American public is that it’s probably not out of the realm of possibility for the NSA to be stockpiling unknown security vulnerabilities, and with the mysterious agency spending $25 million dollars a year on Zero Day vulnerabilities, that would seem to be the case. However, according to a researcher from […]

With the Brazilian government mobilizing 85,000 armed soldiers and police, security at the Olympic Games in Rio is obviously a priority. Unfortunately, one of the biggest threats may not be on the ground, it may actually come from the internet. According to the cybersecurity firm Fortinet, there has been a dramatic 83% increase in malicious […]

iOS devices are known for their security, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. One convenience of owning an iOS device is the ability to track your phone or tablet using Apple’s “Find iPhone” app. If you’re unable to find your device, you can use the app (either on a computer or another iPhone/iPad), to ping your lost […]

Zero Days is a Sci-Fi adventure film, filled with action, adventure and cyber espionage! And it also happens to be true. This documentary by filmmaker Alex Gibney cannot be missed. If you think you know malware, think again. Stuxnet Stealing a person’s identity is a hack that would make Stuxnet laugh. Without giving too much […]

After being launched in May of last year, many people have been under the impression that the HTTP/2 is more secure than the more common HTTP. Google even started bundling it with its SPDY protocol in an effort to speed up web surfing. Unfortunately, data security researchers at Imperva have published a report outlining four […]

Phishing has gone to a whole new level as cybercriminals have started sending emails from legitimate PayPal accounts with fake money requests and links to malicious websites. Most likely using compromised PayPal email accounts, the enterprising hackers are getting unsuspecting victims to send them money.  Just as bad or worse, however, is the link in […]

By now everyone has heard of the DNC leak, which some are blaming on Russian hackers.  That could be just the beginning of a foreign power interfering in the electoral process of the United States though.  The next possible big target?  Voting machines. Voting machines are already a susceptible target owing to the fact that […]

Many small business owners are living in the past, and it is to their detriment. That is because over the last four years, hackers have begun to increase their attacks on small businesses exponentially. In fact, the number of attacks actually tripled from 2011 to 2012, and there has been a sharp increase even in […]

When Apple first came out with its Touch ID on the iPhone 5, it was like owning a piece of the future. The popularity of biometrics (using a person’s unique attributes for identification purposes, such as fingerprints and retinas) has been quickly increasing; in fact, it is estimated that biometrics will grow into a $25 […]

A password cracking specialist has built a beast of a computer that has the ability to attempt upwards of 350 billion passwords a second. For those of you keeping count, this means it can guess every possible Windows password within six hours. The Linux-based machine has five servers and utilizes the Virtual OpenCL cluster platform […]

If you are using a cheap wireless keyboard, you run the risk of having your passwords stolen. According to researchers at the security company, Bastille, there’s a security hole in millions of keyboards that can allow hackers see every keystroke from up to 100 meters away. After testing wireless keyboards put out by a dozen […]

Millions of people use LastPass to store passwords for all their various accounts.  It’s a great idea, because it can be difficult to come up with different, strong passwords, never mind memorizing them for each website you log into.  Unfortunately, a zero day vulnerability has been discovered in LastPass’s cloud vault. A zero day vulnerability […]

WikiLeaks’ crusade of radical transparency is in some respects a noble one, but there are occasions when innocent people are affected. The release of over 19,000 emails from top US Democratic National Committee members is one of those occasions. Included in the correspondence is personal donor information that includes names, home and email addresses, phone, […]

According to the Health and Human Services Office for the Inspector General (OIG), in 2014 almost 60% of hospitals had an outage in their Electronic Health Records (EHR) and 25% of those say it delayed patient care. Of those outages, 20% lasted longer than eight hours with 15% having a negative impact on patient care […]

As a result of the rash of hacking, ransomware and data breaches in recent years, information security professionals are in high demand. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be an 18% increase in information security analyst positions between 2014 and 2024. This expected growth far exceeds that of other occupations, even […]

According to a recent two-year study of hospitals and other organizations related to the healthcare industry, medical facilities on the whole are woefully unprepared to the threat of increasingly more sophisticated hackers. More specifically, their defense is focused almost exclusively on protecting patient records and is typically reactionary rather than proactive. What defenses that are […]

If you’ve been using two-factor authentication, you’re very used to online services sending you a code via text to verify changes to your account.  Hopefully you aren’t in love with that particular security measure, because it’s about to go the way of the dodo. The US National Institute for Standards and Technology says in the most […]

As our recent blog stated, almost 20,000 DNC emails were posted by WikiLeaks on Friday, and it was believed to have been compromised by Russian hackers. Details are coming to light, however, that the breach may not have been committed by just any Russian hackers, but by hackers commissioned by the Russian government in order to […]

What is the definition of irony? Writing an email that mocks a news report, questioning your cybersecurity, just two months before your system is hacked, and said email is mass-leaked to the media. Cue up the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Almost 20,000 emails from seven senior DNC staff members (sent between January of last year […]